Doug Flutie: NFL Becoming More Like The CFL

Flutie spent eight years in the CFL after struggling to gain any traction during his first NFL stint. The man who played for four different NFL teams wrote a column Tuesday for TheMMQB’s “Canada Week” about his time in the CFL.

In the piece, Flutie said that hat the NFL looks a lot like the CFL during his playing days.

“The game in Canada was more exciting, more explosive, more wide open,” Flutie wrote. “It was what the NFL is now becoming. We were going no huddle, over the ball, from the time I got up there. No-back sets, six wide receivers, throwing the ball all over the field. There is a 20-second clock between plays rather than 40. It just creates a pace that the NFL is now realizing to be more exciting-and actually more effective. The NFL is turning into a no-huddle, up-tempo, fast-paced, throw-the-football type of game now. The CFL has been that for the past 30 years.”

Flutie would likely be one of the NFL premiere quarterbacks if he played today in a system that gave him control at the line of scrimmage.

“I’m pretty sure the trajectory of my career would have been different today,” he wrote. “I would have been in a position to be more successful in the NFL running some of these current styles of offenses, and I think an NFL team would have been more open to turning me into a franchise guy if things went well. … It has turned into a little bit different mentality now with the success of guys like (Drew) Brees andRussell Wilson, and the success of the spread offenses in the NFL.”